CATALOG

This arrangement of "On Jordan's Bank" (WINCHESTER NEW) was written for the Installation mass of Msgr. Steven Aguggia at St. Pancras Church in December 2020. It is a fun processional hymn (with a standard interlude right before the final verse) that is suited well for the early weeks of Advent.

This is a piano piece I wrote to accompany a vision I had for the front page of my website. Thanks to the wonderful artistry of Linnea Lieth, she interpreted a handful of the "Inflections" and designed a series of rotating vector graphics, in various colorways, that were inspired by the music. The comprehensive "composition" is now a handful of "inflections" for the piano that interact in sequence with the user as they navigate my home page.

Each inflection is meant to be super sporadic, meaningless in duration, timbrally obvious and flashy, and fully up to the discretion of the performer. There are times where there is obvious motivic development, and there are times when what one is playing feels entirely anachronistic to what came before it. This is intentional and is a reflection of the sense of transience that accompanies often the commodified attention span of a user. Each "inflection" is meant to last only 1.5 seconds long at most, which illustrates the silliness of the concept in its entirety: that short, flashy events "make or break" one's engagement with another's art and is the sole agent that inspires their willingness to pursue further.

This arrangement of "Prepare the Way of the Lord" (Larkin) was put together, while I was a student, for the Installation mass of Msgr. Steven Aguggia at St. Pancras Church in December 2020. Though it is not for sale, it is a fun anthem (with optional string orchestrations) that I strung together for personal use. I found it was suited as a very easy choral meditation anthem for Advent.

This is my arrangement of a beautiful tune by Anna Paes, with lyrics by Zélia Duncan, entitled "Traz Você". I arranged this as a fun independent project the summer of 2020 for big band + orchestra (Metropole instrumentation).

In this arrangement, a beautiful coloratura melody is treated and transformed pretty ambitiously in an American-songbook style.

"Pange Lingua" is a Latin, plainchant Eucharistic hymn in the Phrygian mode that was composed by St. Thomas Aquinas for the Vespers of Corpus Christi — but is also used as one of the hymn tunes at the Procession of the Blessed Sacrament to the Repository altar on Holy Thursday. The chant is, to this day, widely regarded as one of the great seven hymns of the Catholic Church. The hymn Pange Lingua, the text of the chant, translates to "Proclaim, [My] Tongue," and is sung after the mass, at the procession of the Blessed Sacrament, wherein the text of the hymn honors the Word-made-Flesh of Christ. The hymn's last two stanzas, which are sung upon the Benediction of the Sacrament, comprise the ever-praising "Tantum Ergo," which stands in Latin for "Therefore, So Great." Interestingly, these words of the whole Pange Lingua are divided into six trochaic verses — sets of six lines, each stanza utilizing alternate triple rhyming — something that actually set a new lyrical precedent within medieval hymnody. The rhythm of the chant itself, like many early Latin hymns of the Catholic Church, is said to have originated from a marching song of Caesar's Legions, thus giving it that triumphant, burgeoning, war-like quality that I, and many composers who have quoted the Pange Lingua before, aim to reflect in our music.

This s a Chorale and Fugue that I composed the Spring 2020 "Lockdown" semester at Manhattan School of Music, where I graduated with my Masters'. I was fortunate to take a class in organ/service playing with Dr. Ray Nagem, the assistant music director for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NYC. When the class shifted to remote, our course study became geared more towards historically informed arrangements of hymnody, including Gregorian Chant. My composition is, by no means, a standard harmonization, but it is directly informed by a historical study of Gregorian Chant harmony as well as the French Fugue style.

My piece, "Chorale and Fugue on a Theme of 'Pange Lingua'," begins with a simple and short Chorale that aims simply to present a harmonization of the full Latin chant. Immediately after, however, the movement divulges fully into a four-voiced fugue in F Phrygian mode, as you'd expect, and the subject of the fugue itself is based on the first two phrases of the Gregorian Chant. As you will hear, the first entrance begins in the bass, the second entrance in the tenor (with an unorthodox but deliberate two-part counterpoint presented in the bass against the tenor entrance), and then the subsequent addition of the alto voice, which finally, after a somewhat extensive episode, gives way to the entrance of the soprano. The fugue itself presents completely derivative material of the Pange Lingua chant that is developed and quoted at various junctures, as well as extricated from one somewhat foreign tonal center in the exposition (the beginning) to another tonal center, more relevant to F Phrygian mode at the end, thus hopefully invoking some sort of satisfying conclusion when the piece finally renders its subject and thematic material in its home key.

The orchestration itself is sufficient on organ alone, but allows for optional full strings should you wish.

I do hope that this piece enriches your solemnity of the Blessed Sacrament if even in some small way. Thank you for listening, and God Bless!
Robert Buonaspina, June 2020

"Vidi Aquam" is an antiphon that is usually sung in tandem with the asperges (General Absolution), replacing the Penitential Rite on the Day of Easter. This arrangement was originally recorded as voice and piano for a virtual Easter service St. Pancras held in April of 2020. It has since been adapted to feature cello. The engraving and adaptation/translation of MIDI is credited to Michael Brinzer.

"Smile Pretty" was composed in January 2020 for the Jazzkombinat Hamburg's "European Vibes" concert series in Germany.

A quintessential big band Waltz with a lot of attitude, the composition follows a simple ABAB' form throughout and features a trombone solo about 60% in. The piece has an unusual character — one that colors the music frequently with abrasively clashing harmonies and sporadic interruptions of the "waltz" time feel.

The head's melody also fluctuates between tonal centers, implying an "Ab dominant" tonic in constant juxtaposition with Db dominant, thus engendering some sort of obvious identity crisis at the very base of the music itself.

With its robust, mechanical energy — and peculiar textures aplenty — this composition represents, in its purest form, the humorously performative notion of "pushing through" and "smiling pretty" when the going gets tough.

This is the second edition of a Big Band instrumentation/reimagination of my arrangement of "My Favorite Things," which I originally wrote in abridged instrumentation for an informal E.P. recording project (entitled "R.B. & Friends"). It was expanded into Big Band instrumentation and workshopped in December 2019 as its first iteration. It has since then been revised into the more codified Second Edition, which features expanded sections and more soloistic interplay between the featured Soprano soloist and the band. If you are looking for an intense, 18-minute band feature that aims to pay homage to the visceral, pedal-driven energy of the infamous 14-min Coltrane recording, then this is the right choice for you.